SIR,—The letter in a recent issue of The Spectator under
the heading "Job Hunting" evoked a sympathetic response from me. As a "six- year soldier "—the last three, in C.M.F., considerably enlivened by almost daily reports in Service newspapers of the acute labour shortage of all classes of labour at home—my return has been, in both a literal and metaphorical sense, a cold douche. I have not yet obtained the high score of "rejection slips" achieved by your correspondent, but I am in daily hope of equalising, if not forging ahead.
My experience is that the shortage of labour is only existent in the lowest class of manual labour, which is, of course, the most poorly paid. No executives with whom I have been in contact are prepared to admit that an individual of proven capacity for independent action or adapta- bility to new circumstances (in the Army) can possibly possess those same qualities as a civilian. All that is of value is, as your correspondent remarks, "recent experience," and who, of the 1939 and 1940 volunteers, can possibly have this? Recent experience of doing work which is com- pletely unfamiliar, yes ; of daily solving problems of an unprecedented nature, yes ; of learning a job whilst doing it, yes ; but all that is of no importance or value.
There is a widespread orfinion that the Army is impractical, whereas I would have thought, in my ignorance, that the trade of producing death and destruction on a large scale, in constant competition with good, keen, businesslike rivals on the " other " side, was the very reverse of imprac- tical, At least, the only criterion was whether one did better at it than the other fellow. Maybe, Sir, that the current political thought has brought those invisible deities—the employers—under its shadow and deprived them of the will to do what the soldier can at least do—take a chance.—! am, Sir, yours faithfully, Ex-W.O., Royal Artillery.
Previous page
